I was proud of the Kensett Quartet, left to right,
Philip Sigmund, John Peterson, Heber Boyet,
and Martin Edwards

Teacher - Teacher By James E. McEldowney

Can you imagine me being a teacher? Just pretend for a minute
that you are a teacher. There you stand, in front of a room of
students, and you are expected to tell many wonderful things.
Teachers are wonderful people. I owe much to them. When I
graduated from college I did not realize how much a teacher had to
know. I thought I was pretty smart. I had read ever so many
books. But when you stand before a class you wish you knew lots
more than you learn at college. Teachers have to study and learn
more than their pupils do. I think teachers are very special
people and I hope some of you become teachers.

When I became a teacher at Kensett, Iowa in 1928, I was just
a few months past my 21st birthday. I was still a young squirt but
I was supposed to act like a dignified teacher. What made it all
the more funny was that when I got to the school, the
Superintendent - the big guy - called me into his office and said,
"the teacher we expected to be the Principal is not qualified so
you are it!" Me a Principal at 21! with one student just two years
younger who must have thought, what can that young fry teach me?

As the Principal I was supposed to keep all the students out
of mischief. Only a few day passed when one of the students tried
to test my authority. What I said and how I said it I cannot
remember but I let the students know I was no push-over. Some time
later when I sat up on the platform in charge of "assembly" two
girls passed notes to each other and I saw them. I went down to
them. "Please, oh please, don't take the note," one of the girls
said. I took it and read it. It was not nice - bad enough to make
a person blush. Both the girls buried their heads in their arms on
the desk wondering what I would do to them. They were so ashamed.
I walked back to my desk, sat there and let the girls suffer their
own guilt. I learned that the punishment students inflict on
themselves is often more severe than anything a Principal can do.
Most of the time we had a very happy time together.

Of course I had to teach history and English literature and
make out the report cards and do lots of other things. I guess I
was so eager to help those students I tried to do everything.

One of the things I did on the side was to start an orchestra
and a male quartet. That quartet was my glory. We practiced every
noon. My, how they could sing. They won the District Contest and
I even took them down to Simpson College where they sang at chapel
before the student body. They also sang over the radio station at
Ames. Then I decided to have an operetta, BITS OF BLARNEY. It was
a happy Irish musical and in it was the Irish jig. I had to learn
to jig before I could teach the students how to do it. Then when we
put it on one night downtown in a hall over the Drug Store and all
of us did the jig together, the windows rattled. It is a wonder
the building didn't fall down. I shutter to think of it even now.
But what fun we had.

James Benjy Bird, my grandson, named after me, must have had
some of my old Irish rubbed off on him. I got a letter today
(Spring 1997) and
in it he tells of all the places he has been in Europe. He is a
soldier in Bosnia trying to keep the peace. He is a Second
Lieutenant in charge of a platoon of men. He takes every chance
given him to go to different countries and see how people live. He
seems to want to know all he can about everything.

I said he is something like I am. During the summer between
the two years I taught I wanted to see new places. I had grown up
in Iowa and had never been far from home. I wanted
to see what the
west was like.

]

My second year teaching was even more fun than the first year.
I was so eager to get children started in music that I helped a
number get musical instruments. I tried to teach them. I also
coached the students for the declamatory contest. The night of the
contest it was thirty degrees below zero. My ears almost froze
off. We had to drive 50 miles to the contest. The Superintendent
loaned me his car. When the contest was over and we started home
the grease in the running gears had frozen and made a terrible
noise. I drove slowly until the heat of the gears thawed the
grease. Later that year I also coached the school play.

Students sometimes play tricks on their teachers if they think
they can get by with it. We were short of teachers so while I
coached the students for the play in another room, I had to put the
assembly on their honor. Most of the time it worked but one time
when the play was going well a student stuck his head in the door
and said, "It is time for school to be out." I looked at my watch.
There was still half an hour. I dismissed the actors and went with
the student into the assembly room. I asked Melvin to stand.
"Look at the clock," I said. He looked. Sure enough it showed
four o'clock, time to dismiss school. Then I said, "Melvin you
know how to turn the hands of the clock. I could cuss you for
turning the clock ahead to four o'clock. Instead I will make you
the custodian of the clock. Every morning for two weeks when you
come to school you will get up before the students and see that the
clock is on time." I think he would rather have had a good
whipping.

We had some other hilarious times. I taught a boys Sunday
School class at the Methodist church. Halloween came and they
wanted a party. During the afternoon I decorated the class room
with all kinds of spooky things. The boys came and we had some
lemonade and cake, then it was time for stories. I had heard some
scary ones and one after the other I told them. Now and then a
light would go out in the church. When it was time to go home, not
one of those boys would walk alone. I had to walk each one of them
to his home.

But there were things more serious. The time came when I had
to decide whether I would return to Kensett for a third year. My
father had been a Christian minister and all his life he had shown
how important it is to serve people. That kept popping up telling
me to prepare for the ministry. My father had told me, "learn all
you can about God and His world." At last I decided I must go on
to Boston University School of Theology, and do what I felt God
wanted me to do. It was a terribly hard decision, especially since
I had received offers from other schools and the Kensett School
Board urged me to return.

I will not forget the night I left Kensett. Many of my
students and their parents, 50 or more of them, came to the railway
station at three o'clock in the morning, asking me to return for
another year. But I felt God had a different plan for me and I
must find it. Kensett kept tempting me. Each of the next three
years I received letters urging me to return, offering me a much
larger salary. It would have made my life easier because I was
having a difficult time. I had to earn my own way at the
University and it was very difficult.

I think teaching is a wonderful life. After I went to India
it was not long before I became a teacher of young people who were
going to be church leaders. My experience at Kensett was a big
help. Even now, after 67 years, I correspond with a number of
those former students and when I go back to Iowa we try to have
lunch together. I have held those students and friends in very deep
affection throughout the years. They have added joy to my life.
I hope you will know that kind of joy too and you will have many
very wonderful experiences throughout your lives. [by James
E. McEldowney, Spring 1997]